THE FADE

[hurlygurdy]

I've seen enough (already) to be confident that regardless of how many games we win in the first half of the season, we will be at least super competitive. That means that despite the new training program, the issue of a late season fade will grow in everyone's minds.
So i thought we might as well have a thread to collect opinions on the what, when, if, plus potential solutions. Perhaps this thread could be merged with previous ones?
I will start with my take on why we have the fade outs.
(Copied from previous post) The reason is a combination of two things. 1. The age of crucial players being around the 22 mark. 2. A fitness regime that looked towards the long term.

Other teams are doing the same thing now when looking to climb up from a relatively low place. You get fitter than everyone else so that you can dominate, and year by year you carry that domination further into the season as the tank of the younger players grow. Once you have achieved the status of being a serious flag contender and the players have matured, you tweak your fitness plan for the year to give the best chance of peaking during the finals.

I think that fitness plan is the triumph of Hirds coaching so far. It gives the team a real taste of playing top shelf fitness based football early in the season and sets the course for team success a few years down the track. Confidence gets built year by year and those not willing or able to push themselves hard enough get replaced by those who will.
In contrast Carlton and others have lacked long term vision and squandered their lists.
People got excited last year because it seemed we really were flag contenders there for a while. In reality regardless of ASADA i don't think we were going to be any use in September because we still had the "building" fitness plan rather than the "tweaking for finals" fitness plan. This year it is a different story and that has been confirmed by coaching.
That said, there are players who are still unlikely to have the tanks to be of any use in September. They include the following; First and foremost JD. His age is the reason i've said in the past that we are not contenders this year. The Merretts will be cooked. Ambrose, Ashby and Gleeson (plus others) will be too flat at the very least.
So in a way the success of the new training program will be judged on it's impact on the following line ball players. Carlisle, Zaka, Heppell, Howlett, Myers, Hurley, Jetta, Colyer, Kommer and Pears. These guys have come to the sort of age where they should be able to be managed to peak in September.
So can we succeed without those younger guys? On paper our best 22 only holds one or two of those players, but injury and suspensions are inevitable. Who off our list could be September replacements who are outside the best 22? Jetta, Colyer and Pears are the only ones that come to mind. It's thin pickings but perhaps not impossible if we get lucky with injuries.

 

[Whispering_Jack]

I think the fade outs of 2011, 2012 and 2013 can be easily explained.

• 2011 we had a young team under Hird for the first time. A lot of young teams struggle to run out a year.
• 2012 we had the longest list of soft tissue injuries of all time. This meant our best players were either not on the park, or if they did make it on the park they were most likely coming back from injury and thus under done.
• 2013 we fell off due to the players knowing the situation of what was to come regarding being kicked out of finals and the whole year caught up to them.

This doesn't mean I am not concerned for this year, because I am. But I think there are obvious mitigating circumstances surrounding our fade outs. Hopefully this year our players are at an age that allows them to last the season, injuries stay under control and this ASADA shit is dealt within within the month of April as predicted.

 

[Old Campaigner]

I think this year we'll manage our players a bit better in terms of resting them. Give blokes a week off once or twice so they come back full of spark. The back half of our season has quite a few games where we can get away with resting some decent players too, so that should play into our hands.

 

[Doss]

The 'fade out' of 2011 was something of a myth. We started 5-2-1, went 0-5 in the middle of the season, then finished the home and away season 6-3.

 

[84859300]

I think this year we'll manage our players a bit better in terms of resting them. Give blokes a week off once or twice so they come back full of spark. The back half of our season has quite a few games where we can get away with resting some decent players too, so that should play into our hands.

Chappy, Goddard, Fletcher and nearly even Watson could fall into this "rest category" for 2014.

This will stretch our depth, so I'm glad we played as many as we did in the NAB challenge games to give them a taste of senior footy.... no matter how poor the standard was.

 

[hurlygurdy]

The 'fade out' of 2011 was something of a myth. We started 5-2-1, went 0-5 in the middle of the season, then finished the home and away season 6-3.

More of a middle order collapse you think?

 

[Whispering_Jack]

The 'fade out' of 2011 was something of a myth. We started 5-2-1, went 0-5 in the middle of the season, then finished the home and away season 6-3.

Well the fade out could be classed as the June curse that has plagued us for a few years. I know we finished strongly but that middle patch of the year is where we have struggled for a while.

 

[Lord Nicholson]

The 'fade out' of 2011 was something of a myth. We started 5-2-1, went 0-5 in the middle of the season, then finished the home and away season 6-3.

The eventual premier being one of the 6.

 

[hurlygurdy]

I think this year we'll manage our players a bit better in terms of resting them. Give blokes a week off once or twice so they come back full of spark. The back half of our season has quite a few games where we can get away with resting some decent players too, so that should play into our hands.

I called for Crameri to get given a good rest mid last season and got shouted down. Resting players is something that doesn't get a lot of BF support, but is definitely something that i hope they do. We are years behind other codes where resting players is completely normal. I'd like JD to be given a mini off season in July and brought back with a mini preseason in August. But that's something that just doesn't get done in the AFL as far as i have ever seen. I think there some sort of antiquated concept that young players need to harden up over the years while building their tank. They would probably get to AFL level fitness years sooner if managed better.

 

[daffo]

We haven't faded as much as the stats look. We have just had a tough run home most years. We always have to play Carlton/Richmond/Collingwood in the last couple of games and they have been good sides of late.

 

[Doss]

The eventual premier being one of the 6.

Led the other eventual grand finalist deep into the third quarter, too.

 

[Lord Nicholson]

Led the other eventual grand finalist deep into the third quarter, too.

The Michael Ross game, I remember it well. Bizarre day.

 

[cAsEy_18]

I called for Crameri to get given a good rest mid last season and got shouted down. Resting players is something that doesn't get a lot of BF support, but is definitely something that i hope they do. We are years behind other codes where resting players is completely normal. I'd like JD to be given a mini off season in July and brought back with a mini preseason in August. But that's something that just doesn't get done in the AFL as far as i have ever seen. I think there some sort of antiquated concept that young players need to harden up over the years while building their tank. They would probably get to AFL level fitness years sooner if managed better.

I half agree and half disagree with you.

I agree entirely that we need to rest more players, and I would do the exact same thing with Daniher. If we could give him 2-3 weeks off around round 16 that would be a massive bonus.

Where I disagree is with the AFL being miles behind other sports - we certainly rest players less, but I think that's because there are generally fewer games in our season. If you compare to some American sports like NBA (82 games) and Baseball (160+ games), a few losses here and there really doesn't affect their season. In AFL, you rest a few guns, lose 3 games, all of a sudden that can massively affect where you finish and your season as a whole.

 

[Mercurial89]

I half agree and half disagree with you.

I agree entirely that we need to rest more players, and I would do the exact same thing with Daniher. If we could give him 2-3 weeks off around round 16 that would be a massive bonus.

Where I disagree is with the AFL being miles behind other sports - we certainly rest players less, but I think that's because there are generally fewer games in our season. If you compare to some American sports like NBA (82 games) and Baseball (160+ games), a few losses here and there really doesn't affect their season. In AFL, you rest a few guns, lose 3 games, all of a sudden that can massively affect where you finish and your season as a whole.

I think as a competition it is something that should be explored further. Few years ago swan did the travel to the states can back and was one of their best players, full of run.

I'm not saying send them overseas but it might be worth sending a couple of guys for a mini preseason in future and use them to carry a team a little further into the end of the season.

Could even be paired with larger AFL lists with teams using players to peak at certain times throughout the year. Have a tough block of 4 games mid year? Train the handful of players to be in peak condition for that block.

 

[cAsEy_18]

I think as a competition it is something that should be explored further. Few years ago swan did the travel to the states can back and was one of their best players, full of run.

I'm not saying send them overseas but it might be worth sending a couple of guys for a mini preseason in future and use them to carry a team a little further into the end of the season.

Could even be paired with larger AFL lists with teams using players to peak at certain times throughout the year. Have a tough block of 4 games mid year? Train the handful of players to be in peak condition for that block.

Yeah fair call. I meant to say that it can be done, but it also hugely depends on how the first half of your year has gone. If you're sitting 10-1, it's definitely possible. But if you've had a couple of close losses, and find yourself even something like 7-4, you might not be able to afford to drop a couple more.

The other thing with AFL in comparison to other sports is the incentive to finish higher. Compare AFL and NBA for example. In the AFL, you want to finish in the top 4. It has basically been proven nearly impossible to win the flag from outside of it. To go along with that, the incentive of a home final is big. Not having to travel and different size grounds are factors you don't get in a lot of sports. Finally, the idea of a "week off" during finals can not be underestimated.

In the NBA, the only real benefit of finishing higher in the standings is for home court advantage. And whilst you'd prefer to have that, these guys travel every week for 5-6months, they play 41 games on the road every year. It's not a big deal. You might get a weaker team in the first round if you finish higher, but overall the benefit isn't that great, you still have to get through a few of the best teams. Given this, teams 3 weeks out from playoffs (and some even earlier) can simply sit players, not risk injury if they've already made the playoffs.

The one difference I will say in the AFL is our list sizes. The fact that on your list you have as many guys not playing as playing in your senior side each week is big. I can certainly see teams basically designating a few spots on their list (maybe 3-4) to savvy, veteran type players - basically what we have done with Fletcher and Chapman, potentially even Winderlich - with the pre-knowledge that we only intend for them to play 15-16 games.

 

[Buttsoup_Barnes]

Since 2012 we've lost about 3 games before our bye. At 2012 I suggest that the fade came around round 15 rather than round 10 simply because lolz melburn wasn't as bad as St Kilda giving the team a 71 point thrashing. They did win against Port by 50 points the next round, but I think round 15 was debilitating enough for them to fade, especially when they had the likes of Geelong and Hawthorn next.

Then at 2013 we improved, only to fade out at round 18 against the Hawks. If there was a benchmark for improving at fading out this year, it would probably start around round 19 due to that match being the Swans away. It doesn't sound like much, but it's better than last time. Hiccups may come up against facing Collingwood and/or Richmond the second time, as it has been a while since we closed out both games on them in a season.

 

[raskolnikov]

I think the fade outs of 2011, 2012 and 2013 can be easily explained.

• 2011 we had a young team under Hird for the first time. A lot of young teams struggle to run out a year.
• 2012 we had the longest list of soft tissue injuries of all time. This meant our best players were either not on the park, or if they did make it on the park they were most likely coming back from injury and thus under done.
• 2013 we fell off due to the players knowing the situation of what was to come regarding being kicked out of finals and the whole year caught up to them.

This doesn't mean I am not concerned for this year, because I am. But I think there are obvious mitigating circumstances surrounding our fade outs. Hopefully this year our players are at an age that allows them to last the season, injuries stay under control and this ASADA shit is dealt within within the month of April as predicted.

This. 2011 wasn't even a drop off as much as a mid-season slump. We won 6 of our last 9, including a win against the eventual premiers.
Damn. Doss beat me to it.

 

[fishardansin]

Firstly we need to give our boys heaps of vitamin D over the bye with a 7 day preseason up in the tropics.

I would like to see us rotate the list plenty early on and get people to have a week away from the bruising but train hard over the first half as well as that bye preseason.

Then in the second half of the year rotate players for a genuine rest. Aim to give every player two games off. Providing we don't get injuries it should be good to have a look at a few kids and see if Jetta, Pears, Colyer and the like really play for their careers when given a chance.

 

[Amen Corner]

Fade out will not happen this year. Given an even run with injury, we'll be strong to the end this season. All our training was done this pre season with this as the main goal. Precious seasons, that's not been the case. The proof will be in the pudding though....

 

[yaco55]

I think as a competition it is something that should be explored further. Few years ago swan did the travel to the states can back and was one of their best players, full of run.

I'm not saying send them overseas but it might be worth sending a couple of guys for a mini preseason in future and use them to carry a team a little further into the end of the season.

Could even be paired with larger AFL lists with teams using players to peak at certain times throughout the year. Have a tough block of 4 games mid year? Train the handful of players to be in peak condition for that block.

Swan did a mini-season because he was injured.

 

[yaco55]

We've overcome our June curse, now for our end of year curse.

 

[Essendonia]

Too early to gauge, but I think with a bit of depth, some youngsters who can hold their own waiting in the wings, we might need to manage some of our top 10 players. I don't like the idea personally, but the state of the game these days almost requires it, and if we're in a position where we can risk a poor result, you'd want to freshen some up before finals. That said, what Lyon did with Freo was absurd.

In normal circumstances, I'm not sure 'fade out' would have been a major issue last season. I reckon we would've rallied enough to consolidate a top 4 spot, or even a home elimination final, and focus on that match.

Given the relative age and experience of the list, and Bomber's stewardship, I don't expect a fade-out, but I expect to see some uninjured players miss games at stages.

 

[Whispering_Jack]

Too early to gauge, but I think with a bit of depth, some youngsters who can hold their own waiting in the wings, we might need to manage some of our top 10 players. I don't like the idea personally, but the state of the game these days almost requires it, and if we're in a position where we can risk a poor result, you'd want to freshen some up before finals. That said, what Lyon did with Freo was absurd.

In normal circumstances, I'm not sure 'fade out' would have been a major issue last season. I reckon we would've rallied enough to consolidate a top 4 spot, or even a home elimination final, and focus on that match.

Given the relative age and experience of the list, and Bomber's stewardship, I don't expect a fade-out, but I expect to see some uninjured players miss games at stages.

What Lyon did almost worked a treat. Although it ruined their chances of a home qualifying final, it nearly won them the flag. That game against Geelong was amazing.

 

[Essendonia]

What Lyon did almost worked a treat. Although it ruined their chances of a home qualifying final, it nearly won them the flag. That game against Geelong was amazing.

There has to be a better way.

 

[Whispering_Jack]

There has to be a better way.

I'm not saying I am a fan of it either, it could have ended badly, but it didn't. So who knows if it's worth doing?